BeatBots

BeatBots is a robotic character design practice I co-founded with Dr. Hideki Kozima, designer of the Keepon Pro research robot. Keepon was created for child development research and autism therapy. We sold a number of the robots to university labs and research institutions.

In 2011, we worked with UK-based toy company Wow! Stuff to create a toy version called My Keepon.

In 2012, we partnered with ad agency AMV BBDO to design a new character called Zingy as a mascot for UK’s EDF Energy.

The BeatBots team included a number of talented technologists and designers, including Greg Katz, Thiago Hersan, Alea Teeters, and Justine Kasznica. Over the years we designed a few other robotic characters:

Blennie locomotes by wobbling under its own power, keeping its eyes steady. Its pupils dilate and shrink, and its stubby fins move up and down.

Ploomi is an interactive, touch-sensitive, glowing jellyfish character that emotively responds through light, sound, and vibration.

Spazzi is a 3D-printable do-it-yourself dancing robot actuated by three solenoids. It was featured in Volume 27 of MAKE Magazine.

We created a triptych that served as a portrait of our family of characters for Pictoplasma.

Please visit the BeatBots site for more information.